Tourists’ electric car fleet expanding on the Strip

Friday, Feb. 23, 2001 | 11:46 a.m.

Officials with a Texas company that put a dozen electric cars for rent on the Strip earlier this month say demand is so great that they're going to increase the fleet to 140.

Heartland EV, South Padre Island, is negotiating to acquire acreage on the Strip to park, charge and rent the colorful expanded fleet of five-passenger vehicles to tourists who want to go sight-seeing at a top speed of 35 mph.

Tom Emmett, director of operations for Heartland, said he plans to move to Las Vegas to set up and manage the new rental operation, which is targeted to open May 1.

"Las Vegas has received us so well that this is going to become our main store for the company," Emmett said from his El Paso, Texas, base.

Michael Blackmore, chief executive officer for the company, maintains an office at South Padre Island, where the company has a similar car-rental operation. The company also has rental stores in Galveston, Texas, and Panama City and Key West, Fla.

But Emmett said the response in Las Vegas convinced executives to step up their efforts here.

"We first came with 12 cars to stick our toe in the water and we didn't have any signs or any advanced marketing," Emmett said. "We rented all 12 within the first two hours that we had opened."

In its first three days of operation, the company had 50 rentals.

The emissions-free vehicles are available from Star Cars Rentals at the La Concha Hotel, near the Riviera hotel-casino on the Strip.

Susan Sturla, owner of Star Cars, had a hunch that the attention-getting cars were going to be a hit.

"Everybody laughed at me, but I knew when I saw them that I liked them," said Sturla, who is storing some of the expanded fleet in her back yard.

She especially likes the way the cars look at night. Each car has a neon lighting package that casts a glow rivaling the cool colors of the boulevard.

Sturla said she expects the vehicles will only get more popular when the weather gets warmer and she said she has had local residents rent the vehicles for special occasions, just because they're fun to drive and be seen in.

Emmett said the vehicles practically rent themselves. Each car has themed graphics and some have names based on casino terminology. Among them: "Seven-Come-Eleven," "Blackjack" and "17-Red."

"Our first customers were a couple of Canadian ladies who came in and rented one and they wanted to go for a drive up to the factory outlet mall," Emmett said. "On their way out there, they were stopped by another couple who asked about the car and pretty soon, they came down and rented one. Then, one of their friends rented another. It's been like that since we opened."

Emmett said the basic rental charge is $29 an hour or, the most popular package, $69 for four hours. A 24-hour rental goes for $129. The rental pays for "fuel" -- the electrical charge -- which is handled by Star Cars.

It takes about eight hours to fully charge one of the cars -- called an HX480 -- and Emmett said, depending on the cost of electricity, it costs $1.50 to $5 to charge a vehicle. A fully charged car can travel about 100 miles at a speed of 25 mph.

The company has a computer program that monitors the charge of each vehicle to be sure that the 24-hour rentals go out fully charged. A battery monitor in the car works just like a fuel gauge.

The HX480 is classified under federal motor vehicle safety standards as a low-speed vehicle, which means it isn't legal on streets with minimum speeds of 45 mph. To play it safe, renters are told to stick to streets where the posted speed is 35 mph or less.

"That keeps it off interstate highways and main thoroughfares," Emmett said. "We had some people who wanted to take one out to Hoover Dam, but we told them it wasn't possible."

With the success registered so far, Heartland is looking to expand its marketing opportunities in Las Vegas. Emmett said he has approached some resort properties about developing a graphic design incorporating a hotel-casino name.

The company has a number of marketing ideas in mind, such as placing a hotel's name and theme on a car in exchange for parking and charging it at the resort. The company also is negotiating with the Fremont Street Experience about setting up a parking and charging station there and crediting customers with rental time while they visit downtown Las Vegas, monitoring their down time with smart-card technology.

"Everybody wins if we set it up that way," Emmett said. "The renters get extra time, the resort whose theme is on the car gets advertising exposure and downtown gets more tourists." And, of course, the cars would be displayed in a prominent place, giving added exposure to Heartland.

Emmett said it's also possible that Heartland will begin selling the cars in Las Vegas in the future. Models for sale, Emmett said, would have a range of about 300 miles per charge and the expected retail price of one of the vehicles would be $13,000.